Madam Secretary 4×02 Off the Record preview

On the latest episode of Madam Secretary, Elizabeth (Téa Leoni) found herself accused of murder.

If you’re not up to date with Madam Secretary and like to avoid spoilers we suggest you don’t read any further.

The episode opened up with Dmitri Petrov being tested to join the CIA as an asset while Henry (Tim Daly) looked on with Hugh Haymond (Michael Gaston). Hugh was concerned that Dmitri had too much baggage but Henry vouched for him. Dmitri was later accepted under the alias Alexander Mehranov. Henry got to break the news to him and Talia (Masha King).

At the McCord household Alison (Katherine Herzer) was getting ready to go off to college. Her brother Jason (Evan Roe) wanted to turn her room into a gaming room. Elizabeth worried how things would be once the kids left.

Elizabeth had to miss taking Alison to college as she had to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Stevie (Wallis Currie-Wood) was in attendance still working for Russell Jackson (Zeljko Ivanek). President Dalton (Keith Carradine) met her there and explained that China had pulled out of a free speech resolution.

Elizabeth agreed to meet with the assistant vice minister of Timor-Leste. Before they could get started he keeled over in front of her and died. She later met with President Miguel Da Silva (Tzi Ma) and the pair of them had no idea what the vice minister wanted to meet about. He then decided to ship the body of the vice minister back home before an autopsy could be performed.

At lunch Elizabeth popped out to meet her brother Will (Eric Stoltz). She requested a favour from him to test the blood from the vice minister which splattered on her blouse. He eventually agreed and later gave her results that showed the vice minister died from poisoning.

Elizabeth reported back to Russell and Dalton. They worked out that the vice minister was going to reveal his government were involved in the sale of some atolls in a shady deal.

Later while visiting Alison at college a fake news story broke on the Internet. It claimed that the vice minister didn’t die but was instead killed by Elizabeth during the meeting. During a TV talk show interview, the host grilled her about the news story and showed a clip of Senator Morejon (José Zúñiga) promising to investigate the claims. Elizabeth had to defend herself and the reliability of small news sites. Outside protests began calling Elizabeth a murderer and demanding that she quit. As usual, Russell went mental but found himself shocked when Nadine (Bebe Neuwirth) gave him a telling off.

The final test results from Will pointed at the Russians or a Mexican cartel as those behind the poisoning. It turned out that the cartel was controlling President Da Silva and it was they who bought the atolls. Elizabeth offered the support of the US and was able to force China into helping. This led to the arrest of the Mexican cartel leader.